Anna Gorman, Campus Carrier staff writer
An effort to acknowledge the Indigenous land surrounding Berry by the administration is currently underway. According to Chief of Staff Casee Gilbert, research related to the land acknowledgement is still in progress.
The land, originally belonging to the Cherokee Nation in 1855 spanned the northwest corner of Georgia and stretched from North Carolina to Alabama, and included parts of Mississippi and Tennessee. It was taken from them during the Trail of Tears and sold off through the lottery system.
Though the property Berry was built on was not bought from the lottery system, it was purchased from people who had originally purchased it in the lottery, History Department Chair Christy Snider said.
“Berry did not directly benefit from the displacement of the Cherokee,” Snider said.
While research on the land is still underway, Gilbert and her team have worked to create a campus marker to acknowledge the Cherokee and their land, Gilbert stated in an email. The marker includes information on the land lotteries and the impact of historical landmarks such as the Indian Removal Act of 1830, Worcester v. Georgia and the Trail of Tears.
“This marker will be placed on Viking Trail,” Gilbert stated in an email.
Despite this, Jim Watkins, professor of English, rhetoric and writing, said Berry’s recognition of its Indigenous history could be improved with an official land acknowledgement statement.
“I personally would like to see Berry put [out] a land acknowledgement statement, but I also realize there are many Indigenous leaders who don’t really find those land acknowledgement statements very powerful or meaningful,” Watkins said. “Some see it as just a kind of tokenism that doesn’t really change anything. If you feel bad about it, give some of the land back. But others see it as an important statement that we do need to recognize, that another people once thrived on this land.”
The English and history departments strive to provide students with informal opportunities to learn more about the Cherokee and the land.
“I happen to be on a podcast about Indigenous knowledge about the Coosa River Basin, and all the guests on that podcast were Cherokee and Muscogee Indians who had knowledge about the Native American practices with the land,” Watkins said. “We brought some of those people to give a talk in the spring semester of last year.”
The English department also offers a Native American literature class, where students can learn about the stories and context of the land and Indigenous culture. It will be taught by Watkins next semester.
This semester, the history department has partnered with the Chieftains Museum — also known as the Major Ridge Home — to bring speakers to campus to talk about the region’s Cherokee history.
The Chieftains Museum, located in Rome. it is the historic home of Major Ridge, a Cherokee leader who represented the two factions of the Cherokees who assimilated into white American culture. his being pro-Treaty of New Echota, which traded Cherokee land in the east for land in what is now Oklahoma back in 1835.
“Our mission is to tell and interpret the lives of the Ridge family because they’re the ones who lived here, and it’s a part of our local history,” Interim Museum Manager Cameron Abney said.
Abney encouraged all to visit and support the museum.
“We always welcome visitors, group tours and, of course, membership,” Abney said. “We always welcome guests and field trips to come. That’s the best way you can support us.”
Watkins said colleges have a responsibility to protect and honor the history of their land.
“Colleges have a responsibility to uncover new information, share information with the communities where they’re located and should act as an institution that values local knowledge about what happened in those communities and brings information to the local community,” Watkins said.
As an example, Watkins said there are faculty at Berry looking to erect a statue in Rome memorializing lynching victims documented in the early 20th century.
“That has been done in part through the expertise of people on our faculty and working in cross-community relations with clergy and members of the Black community, getting oral histories about segregation and lynching and putting all those things together,” Watkins said. “So this is just something that every institution of higher learning has a responsibility to provide, opportunities for community knowledge building.”
Snider said she would like to see the Indigenous history of the land better communicated around campus.
“[Like] how we have some of the other plaques around campus talking about historical situations, maybe we can do something like that,” Snider said. “It’d be great if we had some stronger connections with the modern Cherokee Nation, whether that is study exchanges or things like that. I’d love to see some of those happen.”
Abney said the best way to recognize the Indigenous land is to tell the story.
“You know, recognize that things have not always been this way, and honor the way they lived and the things they did, because the way they lived was a little different than the Europeans that came here,” Abney said. “But just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Continuing to tell their story and respecting the legacy that they left here for us — that’s the most important thing.”